Balancing government rights against individual rights: letter to the editor

In the wake of mass killings in such places as Aurora, Colo.; Chardon High School; Virginia Tech; and Columbine High School, can we have an open discussion of gun violence? Will the National Rifle Association participate in such a conversation?

Even the NRA, in its early years, often agreed with gun-control efforts. But since the 1970s, it has insisted on the individual right of citizens to arm themselves in defense of their homes and beyond. This has led me to wonder, paraphrasing historian Jill Lapore, if we have arrived at a point "when carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society . . . but as an act of citizenship."

The question then becomes how to balance the right of citizens to bear as many guns as they choose and the right of government to protect its citizens from the resulting gun violence.

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